


so move me, baby

by gunwoong (sessrumnir)



Category: ONEUS (Band)
Genre: (lots and lots of bickering), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bickering, Dance Instructor!Hwanwoong, Idol!Keonhee, M/M, Misunderstandings, enemies to lovers (sort of)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:42:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26516143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sessrumnir/pseuds/gunwoong
Summary: Lee Keonhee is a soloist with big plans for his first solo concert. He thinks he can deliver a dance cover that is nothing like what he has shown in his career so far. The only problem? The dance instructor the company hires to help him with that is someone he knows.Intimately.This can't possibly work. Right?
Relationships: Lee Keonhee/Yeo Hwanwoong
Comments: 11
Kudos: 84
Collections: WEUS Harvest Moon Fest





	so move me, baby

**Author's Note:**

> this was born entirely out of love for this pairing and for this prompt. writer's block was kicking my ass so hard, I'll probably always look back at this story and think it could've been _more_. even though it's 16k words long. how is it 16k words long. I have no idea. still, I'm really happy I get to (finally!!) post some gunwoong. it's been 84 years of me promising myself I would, seriously.
> 
> written for the following prompt:
> 
> _"hwanwoong is a recently graduated dance teacher and keonhee is a very clumsy singer who needs to learn a very complicated choreography for his concert. (bonus but not necessary if they're exes/knew eachother from before. college. idk but they're forced to work together with some tension)"_
> 
> big thanks to the prompter, to my writing sprint partner, and to the harvest moon fest mods for the lovely opportunity!!

_when you move  
_ _I can recall something that's gone from me  
_ _when you move  
_ _honey, I'm put in awe of something so flawed and free  
_ _so move me, baby_

_(hozier -[movement](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPCKW3bhrKQ))_

  
  


It’s a rainy Wednesday evening when Keonhee realizes luck might not be on his side, after all. 

Keonhee knows he has been distracted the entire day. The rain hasn’t let up since morning, and there’s just so much stuff to worry about between promotions and preparations that he hasn’t really stopped to think this through. This arrangement.

He walks to the practice room with one of his friends from the dance crew he works with, lost in conversation, and opens the door without a second thought. It’s the way he rolls, always has been. He doesn’t fret about meeting new people, which is one of his many qualities as an idol, his boss likes to say. He’s just always people-ready. He’s Lee Keonhee, socialization extraordinaire. 

So when the newcomer turns around and meets his eyes, Keonhee isn’t the only one surprised by his own reaction. He freezes. Straight-up stops in his tracks, because standing there, in the middle of his practice room, is someone he didn’t expect to meet ever again.

“Hello,” the guy bows, all politeness and kind smiles. The two people with him—who Keonhee assumes are dancers, assistants, or something like that—greet him too, and Keonhee has enough presence of mind to bow back, but he’s tongue-tied. “Nice to meet you,” the guy goes on to say. He walks over and extends a hand. “I’m Yeo Hwanwoong.”

 _I know who you are_ , gets lost on the way to Keonhee’s lips when he sees Hwanwoong’s eyes up close. This isn’t a misunderstanding, and Keonhee isn’t mixing him up with someone else. 

No, Hwanwoong knows him, too. He’s just pretending not to.

“Lee Keonhee,” Keonhee says, shaking his hand.

There’s a brief, slightly awkward pause before Hwanwoong nods. “Yes. I know.” Keonhee’s stomach drops before Hwanwoong completes, “I love ‘Like A Butterfly’.”

Keonhee smiles, an automatic reaction whenever people mention his biggest (mild) success. It’s been over an year since “Like A Butterfly” was released, but he still gets praise for it from time to time. He knows it was a good song. It _is_ a good song. That gives him an excuse to switch to his professional stance, something he should’ve done as soon as he stepped into that room but was too taken aback to do so.

“Thank you. I’m excited to work with you,” he says, an easy, friendly platitude he was supposed to say anyway, so he hopes it sounds sincere. He isn’t sure if he means it, really.

Hwanwoong squints a little, gives him a knowing smile. “You didn’t know who you were working with, did you?”

“Not really,” Keonhee chuckles good-naturatedly, a little panicked that he has no idea how to deal with the situation, but trying his best. He ignores Changmin’s curious look at his side. “I let the company choose who they thought was best. So! Looking forward to this! I gotta warn you though, I don’t dance a whole lot.”

“That won’t be a problem,” Hwanwoong says with a laugh.

It’s not hard to act professional during practice, because Hwanwoong is doing the same thing. He brought along two people from his dance studio, and Changmin is there with Keonhee as the leader of the dance crew that has been performing with Keonhee since his debut, so it’s not like they can just address _it_ , the elephant in the room, either.

Tonight is supposed to serve as a first meeting sort of thing, his CEO had explained. The dance instructor who also doubles as a choreographer—Hwanwoong—has been briefed about the context of his contract: Keonhee’s first solo concert is in the works, and one of the planned stages is supposed to be a dance cover. It’s a lot bolder than what Keonhee usually goes with for his promotions, which is why the company insisted a dance instructor could come in handy. Not that the dance crew Keonhee has with him doesn’t have excellent choreographers who could help him along, but bringing in new blood and fostering a new partnership would look excellent in the news articles before and after the concert. 

But Keonhee, trusting his CEO like he has been doing since he was a skinny, starry-eyed trainee, didn’t ever think the dance instructor they’d find him would be someone he knew.

Knew in the biblical sense, as a matter of fact. 

He shows Hwanwoong some of the options he has discussed with Yongsun, his CEO. Changmin helps, too, giving his perspective as a dancer and as someone who has been working with Keonhee for longer and knows his strengths as well as his weaknesses. They talk for a good two hours, going over songs and concepts and landing on three possible choices for the stage. Keonhee is glad they’re not actually creating any choreography tonight—he can keep his distance, be professional and not worry about staring, something he _desperately_ wants to do but won’t.

Hwanwoong looks different, but in a good way. His hair is bleached blond now, longer than how he used to wear it when Keonhee first met him. He’s wearing one big earring and a collection of discrete piercings on both ears. He looks older in the way he holds himself, the way he speaks, more confident now than he ever was when he was 18 and fresh out of highschool. 

Well. Those are certainly some memories Keonhee isn’t revisiting now, with Hwanwoong just there.

Practice ends well, all things considered.

“So, see you tomorrow at 4?” Hwanwoong says, picking up his bag. His colleagues are on the way to the door already.

Keonhee nods, puts on his most public-friendly smile. “Yes. See you tomorrow!”

It’s only when the door clicks close that Changmin turns on his heels and tilts his head, curious. 

“Who was that?”

“The instructor?” Keonhee avoids his eyes, busying himself with the laptop connected to the sound system.

“Yeah, you know him,” Changmin says, awfully sure. “Right? Or what was that about?”

There’s nothing else to do on the laptop but turn it off and face Changmin, but Keonhee doesn’t know how to do that just yet. He hums, clicking on the first song he finds on the Top 100 chart just to pretend like he’s doing something.

“Wow,” Changmin says as the track starts coming out of the speakers. “You must be really in shock.”

“I’m not.” 

“You would never willingly play a boygroup song if you could avoid it. You’re stalling. And you’re making me nervous.”

“Don’t be,” Keonhee says. He glances at Changmin, guiltily, as a heavily autotuned rap verse comes out of the speakers. “Ok, but don’t judge me.”

“Can’t promise that.”

“Changmin!”

“I like to judge people! It’s one of my favorite things to do and you know that. But it’ll be fine, come on,” Changmin argues. He walks over to the mirror, leans against it and slides down until he’s sitting with his back against it. He taps his water bottle on the floor between his legs. “Sit down. Talk to me. I could see the cogs turning in your head the entire time he was here, it was painful.”

As embarrassing as it is to voice it out loud, Keonhee can’t pass up the opportunity to talk about this. He doesn’t want to, either. His mind hasn’t stopped running in circles since he stepped into that room and saw _him_.

“It’s a long story,” he says with a sigh, walking over to sit down across from Changmin. But then he sits and frowns. “Wait. No, it’s not. It’s pretty straightforward, actually.”

“I’m all ears,” Changmin says. 

“And judgement.”

“Keonhee!”

“Fine. We, uh. We hooked up once.”

Changmin’s eyes widen almost comically. “He’s an ex?”

“He’s not! I mean. Depends on your definition of an ex? We slept together.”

“He’s a one night stand kind of ex?”

Keonhee feels his cheeks hot, for some reason. Sure, he’s reserved about his romantic life, and sure, he doesn’t go around keeping count of all the people he’s slept with, but he’s not that much of a prude to be embarrassed about this. He guesses it’s more of a—

“You slept with your choreographer?” Changmin repeats, an amused grin sprouting on his face. 

“You’re loving this.”

“I am not,” Changmin says, face growing serious like he wasn’t on the verge of laughter just a second ago. “I mean. Can I love it? Will you be mad if I do?”

Keonhee groans, hiding his face behind his hands. Changmin laughs, scooting closer to tap his back sympathetically. 

“It’s not that bad. I mean, he doesn’t seem to have any hang ups over it?” Changmin is saying, and Keonhee would love to believe him, but he also doesn’t. 

It’s not like he knows Hwanwoong enough to tell what he’s feeling, to begin with. He was, for all intents and purposes, a fling. A one-time thing that seemed confined to one night, years ago, when Keonhee was 18 and still a more-bone-than-meat trainee making another trainee laugh at a party neither of them had really been invited to.

Now, in the present, at the height of his 23 years, Keonhee realizes he has no idea who Hwanwoong really is. 

“It’s just so… painfully awkward,” Keonhee mutters. He looks up, finds Changmin’s (still amused) eyes on him, and groans again. “We literally slept together. He literally saw me naked.”

“I mean, he wasn’t the only one.”

“You’re not helping!”

Changmin laughs, “Keonhee! It’s fine. Seoul isn’t that big, and our dating pool is limited as it is. Don’t worry, he probably doesn’t even remember you.”

Keonhee turns to him in disbelief. “How is that helpful?”

“You want him to remember you?”

“Well, yes!”

“Why?”

Keonhee flails his hands around, trying to come up with nicer words than what he has in mind. “He—We—We did things, he _should_ remember me. By God, he should remember me for all I gave him that night.”

“Ok, maybe we don’t need to go into so many details.”

“Besides,” Keonhee ignores him. “He does remember me. I know he does. He recognized me.” Before Changmin can say anything, he adds, “Not from TV. He recognized me from our—our thing. I just know he did.”

There’s a pause as Keonhee reconsiders all his life choices and Changmin seems to be processing his words. A frown forms between his eyebrows when he says, “So… You want him to remember you, and you’re positive he does?”

Keonhee nods.

“How is that bad again?”

“It’s just,” Keonhee fails to find words again, which is getting a bit absurd at this point. This is not him, at all. “It’s weird.”

“Weird how?”

There’s no point in lying about this. Keonhee sighs once more, for flair, because life is unfair and he just wishes he could be as nonchalant about it as Changmin thinks he should be.

“We exchanged numbers that night,” Keonhee starts, staring at the ceiling, feeling like the dumbest person that ever lived for admitting that out loud. “We texted for a couple of days… Then he ghosted me.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. ‘Oh’.”

It’s an embarrassing memory, one he usually keeps tucked away in the part of his brain where he stores his most shameful moments. It sits right between that time he called his teacher “mom” in front of the whole class in 5th grade, and that time he got drunk and proceeded to cry _and_ puke during the Uber ride home. It’s something that comes back only when someone brings up casual hook-ups, or when Keonhee tries to remember why he’s so scared to give his number away to virtual strangers now.

Well, that, and the fact that he’s an idol now. But even if he weren’t.

“So he’s an ass,” Changmin says. When Keonhee looks at him, he shrugs. “That’s my takeaway.”

“Maybe I was the ass,” Keonhee counters. “Maybe I sucked.”

“That—“

“Yeah, I heard it too, nevermind. Point is, maybe I should have at least asked for a name before I let the company just hire whoever.”

“Look,” Changmin says it gently enough that Keonhee knows it’s coming from a place of love. “It’s not that bad. It could definitely be worse. Besides, he’s actually a decent choreographer.”

“How did that happen, by the way? How did I miss the fact that he’s now a dance instructor? A whole choreographer?”

“You haven’t seen his stuff?” Changmin grabs his phone and unlocks it, opening the YouTube app. He searches something and clicks on one of the first results, handing Keonhee the phone. “He’s growing quite the fanbase. Yubin had him for her last comeback.”

“ _Yubin_?” Keonhee repeats weakly, because seriously, how did he miss that?

The video looks professional—that’s the first thing that Keonhee notices. Hwanwoong is front and center, but there’s a guy and a girl dancing with him, too. The song is a popular one by a Western female singer, something that sounds more eerie than pop, Billie Eilish-y enough for the choreography to be more on the slow, sensual side. 

The second thing Keonhee notices is also the last thing, because he can’t focus on anything else once he realizes how good of a dancer Hwanwoong actually is. The way he moves his body is, in one word, mesmerizing. Keonhee feels bewitched by the faces he pulls, and how clearly devoted to his craft Hwanwoong seems to be. The fact that Keonhee once _touched_ him flies completely out of his mind—he’s stunned into silence, thinking that this is the guy who’s gonna help him create a stage of his own.

When the video ends, Keonhee looks up and finds Changmin’s eyes already on him. 

“I know,” Changmin says. He’s grinning. “He’s _good_ good.”

“He worked with Yubin? _The_ Yubin, ex-Wonder Girls Yubin?”

Changmin nods. “He’s good, Keonhee. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about. He’s gonna be big. Whatever problem you guys had, leave it in the past. It’s not worth blowing this partnership over.”

“And he already signed the contract, anyway,” Keonhee adds. “Nothing we can do about it now.”

“Exactly.”

Keonhee gives him his phone back, and Changmin scrolls through his notifications for a moment, while Keonhee just sits there, thinking. 

When Changmin speaks again, he’s still staring at his phone, playing nonchalance when he says, “So. Was he any good? Back then?”

Keonhee groans, _loudly_ , and Changmin laughs, _hard_.

* * *

It’s not that bad, really. 

That’s the conclusion Keonhee has come to by the time the first practice happens. Hwanwoong brought some ideas along, this time accompanied by one colleague only, a girl with sharp eyes and sharper nails. Keonhee managed to rope Changmin in again, even though he technically doesn’t need to be there. But Keonhee will be damned if he’ll face this by himself.

“I think we could go with your mashup idea,” Hwanwoong says, fiddling with the laptop until he finds the track he’s looking for. He turns it on, volume low. “Make something funky and entertaining but that won’t require much work.”

“Got it.”

“Something like…”

He steps away from the laptop and faces the mirror. He glances at Keonhee, finds his eyes in the mirror, and nods. That’s when he starts showing some of the moves he came up with, stuff that works with the songs Keonhee picked. It’s all great, really, but—

“Can I pull that off?” Keonhee asks when Hwanwoong finishes a move that involves a lot more hip thrusting than Keonhee has done in his entire career.

Hwanwoong blinks. 

“Are you asking me?”

“It was rhetorical,” Keonhee says. “More like, isn’t this… too hard?”

He glances back at Changmin, who shrugs, unhelpfully. He looks back in time to see Hwanwoong sharing a look with his colleague that makes Keonhee feel surprisingly self-conscious.

“What?”

“You _can_ dance, right?”

Keonhee nods. He’s not sure if he’s detecting a hint of annoyance, or if he’s imagining things. Could be the second, but still.

“So you can do this,” Hwanwoong says. “Don’t worry too much, trust yourself.”

 _I trust myself_ , Keonhee wants to retort, because at this point he’s just not sure what Hwanwoong’s deal is. Instead, Keonhee squares his shoulders, nods again, and says, “Sure. Ok. How does it go again?”

He gets the first couple of steps at the end of the day—or rather, night—but it’s hard work. Hwanwoong is patient, if a little bit of a perfectionist. Keonhee plays along because he gets it, he gets wanting to do things perfectly, and he wants that too, after all. It’s his solo concert. But—

“Is it just me, or is he a little bit of an asshole?” Keonhee asks later, after practice, when it’s just him and Changmin waiting for the elevator at the company. 

Hwanwoong and his colleague have left about an hour ago, and Keonhee is starting to feel the tell-tale signs of exhaustion settling in. His arms feel like they weigh a ton each, for starters, and the sole of his feet hurt from how much he’s been walking around all day.

“It’s just you,” Changmin deadpans before stifling a yawn. “He’s a nice guy.”

“How can you possibly know that?”

The elevator doors ding open, and they board it, Keonhee pushing the button that will get them to the first floor. 

“I just mean he’s acting nice,” Changmin explains. He gives Keonhee a funny look. “You’re just being paranoid.” 

“Why would I be paranoid? He’s the one going,” he tries to mimic Hwanwoong’s high tone voice, exaggerating his inflection when he says, “‘well, you _can_ dance, right?’” 

Changmin snorts, walking out first when the elevator doors open again, “That wasn’t bad?”

“He was practically mocking me.”

“I meant the impression. But also, he wasn’t.” Changmin stops on his tracks in the lobby to turn around and look Keonhee in the eyes, “If I were you I’d stop overthinking this. You guys actually seem to work well together.”

“Yeah, because I can be professional. Can he?” He says, resisting the urge to pout. He spots a couple of people by the door and says, “The crew is still here?”

Changmin glances over his shoulder and turns back to Keonhee, nodding. “We’re walking to the station together. But hey,” he lowers his voice, “don’t fret, seriously. I doubt he’s gonna bring it up. Your history, I mean.”

“He’d have to be crazy to do that.”

“Which means you’d have to be crazy to do that too,” Changmin points out. “Just don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“You’re literally the most unhinged person I know, though.”

Changmin grins, raising an eyebrow. “Exactly!”

He laughs, and Keonhee pushes him away, laughing too. They say goodbye at the door, Changmin and his crew going right while Keonhee turns left, towards his dorm.

All the way home and while he’s washing up and getting ready for bed, Keonhee tries to reason with himself that maybe he _is_ being a little paranoid, and that Hwanwoong is just an overzealous choreographer who just happens to come off a bit snippy at times. He wouldn’t be the first one. 

What he does _not_ think about is the Hwanwoong he met years ago, whose smile was enough to convince Keonhee that yes, bringing a stranger home for a one night stand was a totally ok thing to do. He doesn’t think about the fact that the sex was amazing, nor does he think about the fact that Hwanwoong was the one who asked him for his number the next morning, between a sweet smile and a kiss to his cheek.

He really doesn’t think about any of that. He really, really doesn’t. 

(If he texts someone else for a bit of flirty banter before bed because he’s feeling a little lonely, that’s between him and God.) 

* * *

“You said left arm.”

“I said right. It’s always been right. Do you want me to show you the video I have of myself doing the exact same step? Because I have it here.”

Keonhee brushes his face, disgusted to find it hot and sweaty like the rest of his body. He’s been dancing for so long, it feels like it’s another day entirely, like he has been in this room long enough for the sun to have come up. He has no way of knowing, of course, because there are no windows here, just mirrors.

He stares into one and finds Hwanwoong’s eyes on him.

“Alright. Right arm,” he concedes through gritted teeth, repeating the step Hwanwoong has been grilling him about. “There.”

Hwanwoong gives him a long, quiet look before he says, “Let’s take five.”

He’s out of the room before Keonhee can utter a word. Not that Keonhee would be against a break right now. He drops to the floor, lying on his back and welcoming the cold floor like it’s the most comfortable thing he’s ever laid upon. Maybe it is.

The room is quiet for a minute before Keonhee hears the door open again, abruptly. He sits up, startled out of his skin, but it’s just Hwanwoong, who stops when he sees Keonhee’s reaction.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s fine,” Keonhee mumbles, lying back down again.

He closes his eyes because he doesn’t want to keep track of Hwanwoong—whatever face he’s pulling, whatever thing he’s doing, Keonhee doesn’t want to know. 

It’s the fourth day of practice, but for the first time it’s just the two of them in the room. And Keonhee should’ve expected it, but things are not going that well. They’re making progress with the choreography just fine, but there’s this unspoken tension that makes Keonhee feel like he’s talking with a hedgehog—Hwanwoong looks ready to poke his eye out whenever Keonhee as much as opens his mouth, and he’s tired, and he just wants his human buffers back. He longs for Changmin’s unamused shrugs and Soojin’s quiet staring. 

Hell, at this point he’s considering texting anyone that would be willing to sit through practice and keep him company just so they could tell him that he’s not crazy, and that Hwanwoong really is a grade A asshole. 

“Actually, can we talk?”

Keonhee doesn’t open his eyes right away. He counts to three first, resisting the urge to let out a dramatic sigh, and finally sits up. “Sure.”

“Can we do this? Or are you gonna make it difficult the entire time we’re working together?” Hwanwoong asks. He’s standing there, looking at Keonhee while Keonhee looks at him through the mirror. “Because I don’t mind rescinding the contract if this isn’t working.”

“I’m not making anything difficult,” Keonhee says. “You’re the one with a grudge.”

“I’m—” Hwanwoong stops himself with a smile. An angry one. He licks his lips. “Can we make it work or not?”

“You tell me. I’m fine.”

“‘Fine’.” Hwanwoong nods, more to himself than anything. “Fine, ok. We can work with fine. Just please don’t make it any harder than it needs to be?”

“I’m not!”

“You’re getting things wrong on purpose!”

“Wh—No! I’m just not a genius dancer like you,” Keonhee turns to face Hwanwoong instead of his reflection. “Some people actually need to practice things before they get perfect at it, you know.”

“I’m no genius, this is all hard work.”

“Yeah, and I’m working hard, too. Sorry if this isn’t what you expected, but I’m known for my _ballads_ , this is a little bit out of my comfort zone.”

Keonhee stands up, dusting his hands on his pants and walking over to the sound system again. If Hwanwoong wants hard work, then fucking hell, he’s gonna see hard work. But he’s still upset, and try as he might, he can’t keep his mouth shut. Not this time. 

He tried so hard not to bring it up, their past, their unspoken thing, but he has reached a point where it just comes boiling up and out of him.

“Should we start again? Or are you just gonna up and leave like last time?”

There’s a disbelieving scoff to his left.

“You didn’t just say that.”

“Isn’t that what this is about?” Keonhee turns around to look at him. “You’re holding a grudge since that time, which is the most ridiculous—”

“I’m not holding a grudge, I just know I can’t trust you. That’s different.”

Keonhee is baffled. He can’t get a word out at first, staring at Hwanwoong in confusion. “Wait, what? _You_ can’t trust me? You’re the one who ghosted me!”

“Well, I had a good reason for that, didn’t I?” Hwanwoong shoots back.

“What? No, you didn’t.”

“Are you serious right now? You didn’t tell me you had a boyfriend before you took me home. That was fucked up, and unfair, and you know it.”

If Keonhee was confused before, now he’s positively flabbergasted. He blinks. “I had a what now?”

“A boyfriend. I saw the two of you that same week, dude,” Hwanwoong is on a roll, speaking so fast his words sound all jumbled together. “The same week! I don’t care how open your relationship was, you should’ve told me. That would be the nice thing to do, especially since I was super honest with you that entire night. I gave you all I had.”

“I didn’t—” Keonhee is so confused he doesn’t know where to start. “I wasn’t dating anyone. I didn’t have a boyfriend back then. Where the fuck did you get all that from? Is that why you ghosted me?”

Hwanwoong isn’t happy with his answer. He sighs, angrily, and walks towards his backpack, throwing his phone in with a little too much force. “This isn’t gonna work if you’re just gonna lie to my face. It’s not like it even matters anymore.”

“I’m not lying!” Keonhee says, exasperated. “What boyfriend? Where did you even see me?”

“At the company. My company,” Hwanwoong says. He throws his backpack over his shoulder, turns back around to face Keonhee. “Are you gonna deny that too? You were there with a guy I knew back from my dance academy days. I think he was scouting for a company, back then.”

Keonhee shakes his head. “I never dated any dancer! I mean, not back then. Since then, yeah, but not back then.”

“So you’re telling me I saw things?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

Hwanwoong rolls his eyes and goes for the door. “Unbelievable.”

“Who was the guy?” Keonhee asks before Hwanwoong can actually leave. Hwanwoong stops. “You said you knew him, so what was his name?”

“Geonhak. Kim Geonhak.”

“I don’t even know a Geonhak,” Keonhee says. “Seriously. I swear. You must’ve seen someone that looked like me.”

Hwanwoong doesn’t move, nor does he say anything. 

“Wait, you _did_. You used to wear glasses.”

“I had my glasses with me!” Hwanwoong turns to say, but he looks guilty. “I wasn’t… wearing them, but I had them with me.”

Keonhee can’t believe it. He really, really can’t. “You ghosted me because you mistook me for someone else?”

“It _was_ you,” Hwanwoong argues, but he doesn’t sound as certain anymore. “I swear, he looked just like you.”

Keonhee laughs, because this is absurd. Everything about this situation is so absurd. For years he couldn’t think of that night and not feel shame, thinking it was his fault, that he had just been such a shitty lay he hadn’t even been worth a proper goodbye. Thinking that maybe one night stands weren’t all that people cracked them up to be, after all, if all they were good for were a headache and a stain to his self-esteem. 

And the way he has been trying so hard for the last week to swallow his pride, thinking that everything would pay off in the end when he had a nice stage to show for, despite the fact that he had to pretend the guy teaching him the goddamn choreography wasn’t someone who had tossed him aside like trash? Fuck all that. 

“You’re a jerk,” he says with a humorless laugh. 

He doesn’t wait to hear Hwanwoong’s answer—he picks up his things and leaves the room, slamming the door behind him.

* * *

For the next three days, Keonhee makes sure to be as obnoxiously himself as he can. He allows himself to have a nice over-the-top dinner the next night, because fuck dieting. He leaves IU’s latest album on repeat in the car continuously—despite his manager’s soft suggestions to add something else to the playlist—because fuck everyone else that is not Lee Jieun.

He also reaches out to his CEO, Yongsun, about cancelling Hwanwoong’s temporary contract, because fuck _him_.

It doesn’t quite work as planned. What he gets instead is Yongsun _in_ the practice room with him for the two hours of practice Keonhee really, really wished wouldn’t happen. But it does happen, and not only is Yongsun there, so is Changmin and his second-in-command in the dance crew. Hwanwoong brought Soojin along too again, so it’s a bit crowded in the room, but whatever. If this is going to happen, as Yongsun assured Keonhee it would (“He’s a really great dancer, Keonhee, and he costs half as much as some big names we want to get for your comeback later in the year…” “He’s also an asshat.” “A _cheap_ asshat!”), at least it doesn’t have to be something he needs to suffer through alone.

The first thing he notices when practice starts is that Hwanwoong is acting different. He’s not outright glaring at him, like Keonhee now knows he has been doing, nor does he have that air of superiority that Keonhee found so off-putting but couldn’t quite pinpoint before, so there’s some improvement there. For all intents and purposes, anyway. But Keonhee isn’t counting this as victory.

He just wants to get this over with and forget short people exist, once and for all.

Having more people in the room helps somewhat. The atmosphere is a bit more relaxed, and by the end of it they’re all laughing, mostly because Yongsun can’t help but break the ice any chance she gets. The choreography is coming along nicely, everyone agrees, and Keonhee gets praise all around—including from Hwanwoong, who slips in a “good job” that sounds sincere enough with the smile that goes along with it. Keonhee is a bit skeptical, but he decides to take it at face value.

What he isn’t expecting is to get a text later that night from a number he doesn’t recognize.

**[Unknown] [23:54]**

Hey! It’s Hwanwoong. Just wanted to say I’m sorry for everything

He stares at it for a second. The first thing he does is save the number on his phone.

**keonhee! [23:55]**

who gave you my number?

**little shit [23:55]**

Yongsun noona

Yongsun-nim?

She told me to call her noona

**keonhee! [23:55]**

i literally didn’t ask

but ok

**little shit [23:55]**

Dude, I’m trying to make things right here

**keonhee! [23:55]**

there’s nothing to make right

we have to work together for a while

that’s all

also you type like a psychopath

**little shit [23:56]**

I have autocorrect on!!!!!!!!!!!

**keonhee! [23:56]**

NORMAL people turn it off

**little shit [23:56]**

Listen, I said I’m sorry!!!

**keonhee! [23:56]**

acknowledged

**little shit [23:56]**

You know what?

Nevermind

You’re impossible

**keonhee! [23:56]**

=^.^=

* * *

“You’re staring,” Seoho says, bemused.

Keonhee looks down at his food. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The room is at the perfect temperature, chill enough to make up for the spicy food they ordered. It’s a little past 7pm, and some of the makeup he wore for his last schedule of the day is making his eyes sting a little bit, but he’s too preoccupied with his food to bother looking for wipes just now. He’s so comfortable reclining on a chair at the long table, feet propped up on another chair, that he really doesn’t want to move before he’s finished eating.

Seoho, labelmate and something close to a friend, is sitting at the table too, also gorging on food happily. He’s still smirking.

“What’s the story there?”

“No story,” Keonhee says, glancing up again. The room they chose to have dinner in is separated from the open floor area by a glass wall, so he watches Hwanwoong pick up the soda from the vending machine across the floor and walk away. Keonhee looks at his food again, stuffing his face with a particularly big piece of chicken. “He’s the dance instructor.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“That he’s a dance instructor?” Keonhee frowns. “He is.”

“I don’t believe you saying there’s no story.”

Seoho’s smirk is too devilish to not have some ulterior motive behind it. Keonhee narrows his eyes. “Who have you been talking to?”

“No one.”

“Spill.”

Seoho shakes his head. “I have my sources.”

“I swear, I will kill you in your sleep.”

That makes Seoho laugh. 

“You don’t have access to my apartment.”

“I can get access. I have my sources too,” Keonhee says, which is partially true. “Seriously, who has been gossiping about me?”

“No one. You just gave yourself away.”

Seoho laughs, unbothered when Keonhee flicks a grain of rice at him. 

“There’s no story, no nothing. He’s just someone I have to work with.”

“You’re usually more friendly towards the people you work with, though. There’s a catch here,” Seoho points out, watching Keonhee for a moment. “Is this how you do flirting? Staring at someone until they get the hint? Because that won’t work with Hwanwoong.”

“Wait.” Keonhee freezes, holding the broccoli he's about to eat midair. “You know him?”

Seoho shrugs. “We were in the same dance academy back in the day.”

“Wait. Wait, wait,” Keonhee puts his chopsticks down and sits up, feet on the floor so he can lean forward. “Do you know a Geonhak?”

“Kim Geonhak? Yeah, I know him.”

Something about the cheeky way Seoho says it, smirking to himself, tells Keonhee there’s something there, something he will be dying to pry out of Seoho one day, but not today. Today, Keonhee jumps in place, clapping his hands. 

“Oh my god. Ok. Did that guy have a boyfriend that looked like me? Back in…” He does some quick math in his head. “Circa 2016?”

“He’s been dating the same guy for years. I don’t know for how long, though,” Seoho says, picking up his phone from the table and unlocking the screen. “Hang on.”

It’s a minute before he snorts and hands the phone to Keonhee, open to an Instagram page.

“I mean, you two kinda look like, yeah.”

Keonhee looks at the picture on Seoho’s phone. It’s from an user Keonhee doesn’t recognize, and it shows two guys smiling at the camera in an open air selfie with the sun in the background. It’s a good picture, and they look cute, even though Keonhee doesn’t think he looks anything like either of them.

“The one on the right?”

“Yeah,” Seoho says. “Geonhak is the one on the left. Small mouth, hair boring as fuck.” 

Keonhee holds the phone up and away from his face, squinting.

“What… are you doing?”

“Trying to see if I’d see myself in this guy if I were a shortsighted asshole,” Keonhee explains. “If he had dark hair back then, then maybe?”

“Seriously. What’s the story here?”

Even though he can’t really see where the similarity lies, Keonhee admits that maybe, from a distance, if he had shitty eyes and a predisposition to paranoia, he could see that jawline and those eyebrows and think he had found a lost cousin. Anything past that and he’s pushing it, really. He returns the phone to Seoho and picks up his chopsticks again before his food gets too cold.

“I met Hwanwoong once. He mistook me for that guy.”

“Wow,” Seoho says, sounding anything but awed. “He’s way prettier than you, though?”

“Shut up.”

“So lemme see if I got this right,” Seoho looks up, like he’s picturing Keonhee’s life story as a blackboard storyline in front of his eyes. “You were dating the dance instructor—”

Keonhee chokes on his food. “I never said—”

“—he saw Dongju with Geonhak, assumed it was you, and broke things off because he thought you were cheating on him?”

Keonhee is still coughing, but he manages out a “I never said anything about dating?” that Seoho summarily ignores. 

Seoho’s ability to connect the dots, the way his brain finds the logical explanation for things no matter how small, is usually something Keonhee admires in him, but definitely not now. 

“That’s wild,” Seoho muses out loud before turning to Keonhee again. “You used to have an interesting love life? That’s even wilder.”

“Why do I even talk to you?”

Seoho shrugs. “Convenience.”

“That was _rhetorical_ —You know what? Fine, you’re right. Sort of. We were sorta dating. He sorta broke things off. Now he’s just an asshole I used to sorta know.”

“Hwanwoong? An asshole?” Seoho shakes his head. He puts down his now empty bowl and picks a napkin to dab at his mouth. “He was pretty much Goody Two Shoes Hwanwoong back in the day. So unless he had a complete change of heart, you’re the one who’s bitter.”

Keonhee closes his eyes. “Oh, I can so feel a headache coming.”

He hears Seoho’s chair scrapping against the floor and opens his eyes to find him cleaning up his side of the table. Keonhee looks down at his own food, stuffing the last bites into his mouth before he stands up too.

“I’m not bitter,” he says around a mouthful of vegetables, because it feels unfair to leave it at that, unchallenged. “I’m just being careful.”

“By staring at him like you were doing just now?” Seoho grins, but before Keonhee can argue, Seoho adds, not unkindly, “I just mean like, yeah, be careful. Take care of yourself, man. Don’t assume things, don’t go looking for a fight if you don’t need to have one.”

Keonhee hesitates. In the three years they’ve known each other, it’s probably the first time he has seen Seoho be this earnest. Probably the first time they have given each other advice that is not strictly performance-related, too. “That’s… very unlike you. Thank you?”

Seoho laughs, picking up the two bags they’ve filled with the empty bowls and cups. “You’re buying next time.”

“I bought this time!”

“Yeah, and I’ve just earned next time with my wisdom. You’re welcome.”

“I really am going to kill you.”

* * *

The next practice is… interesting, to say the least. Keonhee is determined to act professional, but he doesn’t have to do much, because Hwanwoong could have been replaced by a robot and Keonhee wouldn’t know. The dancer is avoiding eye contact, speaking in a monotone and relaying instructions like a disillusioned ballet instructor in her forties.

Even Soojin, Hwanwoong’s quiet but loyal colleague, steps up this time around to help. Either she’s sensing that they won’t get much progress with the way things are, or Hwanwoong asked her to do that before they arrived. Keonhee doesn’t mind—she’s patient and she explains things as many times as Keonhee needs to hear them without rolling her eyes, which Keonhee considers a win. 

But this is a bit ridiculous, he thinks. It’s not like either of them owe the other anything; they’re not at war, for crying out loud. Acting up like Hwanwoong is doing, with his herculean efforts to not meet Keonhee’s eyes, is just straight up making things awkward for nothing. And sure, maybe Keonhee didn’t do his best to mend things between them, but he doesn’t think there’s anything to mend.

Which is why he approaches Hwanwoong at the end of practice.

“You’re just being childish, you know that, right?” 

Hwanwoong doesn’t look at him at first. He looks up, stares at the wall, and blinks. Once, twice. Slowly, he turns to Keonhee.

“I’m sorry… What?”

“You’re acting like you’re gonna turn to stone if you as much as look at me. You don’t need to,” Keonhee explains, watching with the corner of his eye as Soojin hastily makes her way out of the room, leaving them alone. He sighs. “Does she think we’re gonna murder each other?”

“If she thought we were about to kill each other, she’d stick around to provide my alibi,” Hwanwoong says, so calm he sounds way angrier than he would if he were shouting. “She’d testify you choked on your own spit from talking too much. Which is probably how you’re gonna go, anyway.”

“You’re hilarious,” Keonhee deadpans. 

Hwanwoong shrugs, turns back to his bag where he has been stuffing his water bottle and his jacket. “Maybe you’re just a joke.”

Keonhee opens his mouth, offended, but he doesn’t have a comeback ready. That doesn’t happen often. He’s quick-witted and he has a response for everything, always, so finding someone who seems to be equally as ready catches him off guard. He stutters. “I—You’re—Shut up?”

“Wow,” Hwanwoong says, and it’s so incredibly annoying, it’s a feat that he manages to pack so much sass in such a small word. “And I’m the one who’s childish?”

“One thing doesn’t cancel the other.”

“So you’re admitting to being childish too?”

“Well, when I’m dealing with a child—“

Hwanwoong turns to him, throwing his backpack over his shoulder. “Are we done here? Because if you’re waiting for me to stroke your ego until you feel better about being a dick to me, sorry, that’s not gonna happen.”

“I’m not waiting for anything, why would I expect anything from you?” Keonhee fires back. “Last time I did that, all I got was radio silence and the absolute certainty that I was an unlovable excuse of a man, so. Not holding my breath again!”

Something shifts in Hwanwoong’s expression.

“That’s how you felt?”

Hwanwoong is curious; he doesn’t sound angry, or like he’s fishing for an argument there. He’s watching Keonhee’s face. Keonhee feels his ears hot. 

“Whatever. Doesn’t matter.”

“Well, it does to me,” Hwanwoong says. “I didn’t know it had affected you that much.” 

“What difference does it make? We’re past that,” Keonhee says, sounding so convincing he almost convinces himself. It’s hard to keep Hwanwoong’s eye contact, but he tries. He can’t just turn his back to him now, as much as he wants to. “We’re past all that. Which is why you don’t need to treat me like I have the plague during practice. That’s just stupid.”

Hwanwoong raises his eyebrows. “You literally called me a psychopath.”

“No, I said you _type_ like a psychopath. Very different.”

“How is that different?”

“It just is,” Keonhee argues. “You’d know the difference if you typed like someone your age.”

“I’m your age.”

“I know that. That’s what I mean.”

Hwanwoong gives him a tired look. “What is it, Keonhee? What are we doing here?”

“We’re working,” Keonhee says, even though it sounds like fibbing. “Or trying to. I’m trying.”

“Right. While you’re clearly still hung up on what happened years ago. And if you’re gonna keep cornering me to call me names and accuse me of being unprofessional, maybe we should talk it out.”

“Maybe we should,” Keonhee says right away. 

Hwanwoong is suspicious. “We should?”

“Are you free right now?”

Hwanwoong nods.

“Cool. Grab your things, I’m driving.”

“You can drive?”

“Can you not sound so surprised, please?”

* * *

“You said you can drive,” Hwanwoong says later, scooping a spoon out of his ice cream. He takes it to his mouth, makes a satisfied little noise, and finally continues: “But you drive like someone who just got their license.”

“That’s because I did.”

The ice cream shop is mostly empty this late into the night. Aside from them, there’s a middle aged couple by the counter and a group of friends around their age sitting outside. They’re in a booth by the corner, Hwanwoong eating an ice cream cup while Keonhee enjoys his milkshake. This is Keonhee’s favorite ice cream shop, despite the fact that it’s not close enough to the company or to his dorm to be in walking distance. But it doesn’t matter—he has his hard-earned license, a company car at his disposal, and the will to drive all the way there.

“What took you so long?” Hwanwoong asks. 

Keonhee shrugs. “I’ve been busy.”

“Mm, yeah. How does it feel, being an idol?”

Up until then, Keonhee hadn’t thought about the fact that Hwanwoong had been a trainee just like him, aiming for the position Keonhee has right now. He doesn’t know what drove Hwanwoong away from this path, or why. So he tries to be honest.

“It’s ok,” he says, chuckling when Hwanwoong gives him a look. “It’s nice. I like it, I like singing and being on stage. It’s just a lot of work, and a lot of it doesn’t show, so sometimes it feels like I’m overworking myself for nothing. You know? Like, what’s the point in honing my skills every single day if what matters is how funny I can be on TV, or how many gross, inappropriate jokes I can take from men twice my age before they agree to let me sing their song?”

Hwanwoong doesn’t say anything to that. Keonhee focuses on his milkshake, trying to tell himself that he’s not oversharing, that this is fine, he isn’t being too honest with a virtual stranger. Because that’s who Hwanwoong is, no matter their history, no matter how easy it is to say all these things to him right now—things he doesn’t share with anyone else.

“I swear it’s not that bad,” he says, hoping to come off as lighthearted. “It must be the sugar rush.”

Hwanwoong chuckles. “It’s fine. I get what you mean. Sometimes I’m glad it didn’t work out for me that way. I hear some horror stories…”

“There’s plenty of those,” Keonhee agrees.

“I have friends who became idols. Some are still there, some left for one reason or another. It’s not easy. I don’t judge you for keeping your guards up.”

Keonhee doesn’t know what to say to that, so he drinks his milkshake, letting the soft ambient music playing in the shop fill the silence for them. 

“Can I ask you a question?” Hwanwoong says after a minute, looking down at his ice cream.

“Sure.”

“Was it really that bad? I mean, when we met that time…” Hwanwoong clears his throat. “And went our separate ways. Were you really that hurt?”

Keonhee stirs his milkshake with the straw, thinking for a second if he should be brutally honest here. “Yes,” he decides. “I don’t care if this makes me sound like an idiot, it hurt a lot. That was incredibly shitty of you.”

“In my defense, I thought you had lied to me,” Hwanwoong says.

“Well, you could have asked me. We could have talked. You know, like people usually do when there’s a misunderstanding,” Keonhee tries to glare at him, but he gives it up soon enough, adding, “It’s just… It was a blow to my self-esteem. And I had a lot of it back then, so make of that what you will.”

Hwanwoong pauses before saying, “I’m sorry.”

Keonhee waves him off with a hand. “It’s in the past. It’s my fault for giving so much importance to casual sex, anyway. It’s not like we were dating.”

“But did you want to?”

“To what?”

“Did you want us to date? Back then?” Hwanwoong is watching his face, curiously. “Because you must’ve been expecting something more.”

“Well, I mean—Yeah. I liked you.”

“You did?” Hwanwoong looks surprised. “We barely knew each other.”

“I know that!” If Keonhee feels a little embarrassed, he’s trying his absolute best not to let it show. It’s one thing to admit you were upset that someone didn’t return your texts—it’s another thing entirely to admit you were upset because you had feelings and expectations that shouldn’t exist in the first place. “But I liked you as a person, I wanted to get to know you. And I thought we had clicked, but I was obviously very wrong about that.”

He slurps on his milkshake, avoiding eye contact because if he sees even a hint of a smirk on Hwanwoong’s face, he might throw hands.

Instead, what he hears is a low, soft, “I thought we had clicked, too.”

Keonhee looks up. He finds Hwanwoong’s eyes on his—no smirk, no hint that this is a joke. Hwanwoong sounds honest. Which is a lot, because for so long Keonhee thought he had interpreted that night all wrong. He somehow convinced himself that he had seen things, that Hwanwoong hadn’t actually been that interested in what he had to say, that the laughs they shared were probably a result of too much alcohol and maybe a little loneliness. 

Back then, they were just two guys with dreams too big for themselves, giddy with excitement for what the next few months would bring them. Keonhee managed to convince himself that he had meant nothing to Hwanwoong. At all. He had been a means to an end, and that was it. 

So to hear that maybe that wasn’t entirely true is, to put it mildly, a bit mindboggling.

“I wouldn’t have guessed,” he says, because it’s true.

Hwanwoong leans back on his seat, sighing. He looks around, and Keonhee wishes he could begin to guess what Hwanwoong is thinking, but he can’t really read him. All he can do is wait as Hwanwoong licks his lips and gathers up the courage to say whatever it is he wants to say.

“I overreacted,” he eventually begins, letting out an embarrassed chuckle. “I thought, here’s this guy I could see myself liking, and he’s just… lying to me, like everyone always does, because everyone thinks I’m an idiot that’s too good for his own good. It took me a while to get over it, too, you know. It was… not a fun ride, I’ll tell you that.”

He looks down, scooping up the last spoonful of ice cream melting in his cup. When he looks up again, Keonhee is still staring at him.

“I’m so sorry,” Keonhee says. He means it.

Hwanwoong laughs, “You’re not the one who fucked up. That was totally on me.”

“Still. That sucks. That you thought I had lied to you.”

“You didn’t? Because I’m pretty sure I remember something about being a distant cousin of Hyuna.” 

Keonhee grins. “That could still be true.”

“You have a Naver profile page now, it’s not true.”

“Oh, so you’ve been reading my profile?”

Hwanwoong feigns innocence. “I might’ve stumbled upon it…”

When Keonhee laughs, Hwanwoong follows. This is the first time Keonhee has seen him laugh this loud and this carefree since they met again. It’s nice, because Hwanwoong has a nice laugh, high-pitched like his speaking tone of voice, and Keonhee knows he likes it—it’s one of the few things he remembers the most, and most dearly, about That Night.

(That, and stuff he should probably not think about when sitting across the very same guy with whom he is trying to build a professional relationship now.)

Keonhee checks the time. It’s late, but not too late. He can afford a couple more hours away from his bed, but he doesn’t know much about Hwanwoong’s schedule. He hopes he’ll stay for a while longer—because they need to talk and sort things out once and for all, he reasons with himself, and not because he’s enjoying Hwanwoong’s company. 

“So. Now that we’ve put our cards on the table,” he says, pushing his empty milkshake glass out of the way and spreading his hands on the table. Hwanwoong does the same with his cup. “Can we do this? Can we see through this routine until the end and not kill each other in the process?”

“Yes,” Hwanwoong says, right away. “I mean. I’ve been all in for it from the start.”

“You haven’t. You were looking at me like I was a very tall garbage can the first couple of days.”

Hwanwoong opens his mouth to argue, but then stops himself. “I was… on edge,” he agrees (but not really). “I was expecting the worst. It was pure self-defense.”

“What kind of worst? That I’d take you to bed again and somehow have a mysterious boyfriend that I never told you about? Which, by the way, I look nothing like that Dongju guy.”

“Wait, Dongju who?”

Keonhee pulls out his phone and pulls up Instagram. He types Geonhak’s user off the top of his head (listen, he has a good memory, Geonhak is cute, and it’s not that hard to memorize _kimgeonhak1997_ ) and scrolls down until he finds the same picture Seoho showed him. He hands the phone to Hwanwoong.

“Maybe you should follow people on social media. That would save you a lot of headache.”

“Or give me more. I was on a social media ban of sorts back then...” Hwanwoong says, distractedly staring at the picture. “Was this the guy I saw Geonhak with? He doesn’t look like you. I mean, maybe it’s the pink hair, but he really doesn’t.”

“I know,” Keonhee makes an obnoxious voice to quote what Seoho said that day, “ _he’s prettier_.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Oh? So I’m prettier?” 

“I didn’t say that either.”

Keonhee blows raspberry at him, taking his phone back. Hwanwoong lets it go, but he’s smiling.

“I know I say this a lot but _in my defense_ , Geonhak didn’t have an Instagram account filled with pics of his boyfriend back then either.”

“Stop trying to defend yourself, you’re just hurting your case,” Keonhee says, scrolling through Geonhak’s feed absentmindedly. “He’s cute.”

“He’s hot, you mean,” Hwanwoong says. “We can be honest here. This is a Geonhak-thirsting safe space.” 

Keonhee laughs, feeling a little giddy. He locks his screen again, “Maybe I should be flattered you thought I was dating him.”

“You should. He’s nice. Well, used to be, we lost touch.”

“Why?”

“I lost touch with a lot of people after I quit being a trainee,” Hwanwoong explains. “It happens. I should probably check if Geonhak is still dancing, though, he used to be good.”

There’s a question on the tip of Keonhee’s tongue, but he’s not voicing it. They’ve barely crossed over the turbulent waters of their misunderstandings, he doesn’t want to risk making it all for nothing. Even though he’s curious to know why Hwanwoong chose the path he chose, he’s not risking asking it now.

Instead, he says, “You know Seoho. Right?”

“Gunmin hyung,” Hwanwoong smiles fondly. “Yeah. He knows Geonhak too.”

“I know. He’s the one who showed me his Insta.”

“Were you talking about me?”

Keonhee opens his mouth, realizing a beat too late that he just gave himself away. Hwanwoong laughs, the corners of his eyes crinkling. It’s a good look on him, but Keonhee is too embarrassed to even think about that. 

“Shut up.”

“Oh, you _were_. That’s interesting. What did you tell him?” Hwanwoong rests his elbows on the table and his chin on his hands, a shit-eating grin on his lips. “What did you say about me?”

“That you’re short and have shitty eyesight,” Keonhee says. He ignores the way his ears are burning in embarrassment. “Should we go?”

Hwanwoong ignores his question, “I _had_ shitty eyesight. I don’t wear glasses anymore. What else did you say?”

“Does it matter?” 

“I’m curious.”

“Not my problem.”

“Feisty for someone who just admitted to gossiping about his coworker to another coworker,” Hwanwoong says, still grinning like the Cheshire cat. 

Keonhee has no idea what’s so amusing to him about all of this, so he stands up. “Do you want a ride back or not?”

“I’ll take one to the station,” Hwanwoong says, and follows him out of the shop.

They’re in silence until Keonhee drives the car out of the parking spot, which is when Hwanwoong says, “Sorry again. For making you think you weren’t worth an explanation.”

Keonhee glances at him, but keeps his eyes on the road. “It’s all good.”

The station isn’t three minutes away. There’s a ticking clock on this conversation, and Keonhee feels like he should say something else, but he doesn’t know what the right thing would be. 

Everyone who knows him knows he likes to talk, likes to speak his mind and entertain his friends with jokes and a seemingly endless supply of useless factoids. But maybe because he uses words so much, he knows the weight they carry. He likes to use them with care, always worrying about saying too much—or worse, saying the wrong thing. He’s mindful, or tries to be, anyway. So he doesn’t want to say the wrong thing now and ruin whatever compromise they’ve reached. 

Sometimes, words are better left unsaid lest they become weapons, Keonhee thinks. 

“I didn’t think it’d suit me,” Hwanwoong says, unprompted. He’s looking out the window. “Idol life.” He glances at Keonhee. “I don’t know, maybe it could work, but I was pretty sure back then that it wouldn’t. I had some close calls with the worst side of this industry. That’s when I realized I value my freedom too much.”

Keonhee doesn’t answer at first. He has an idea of what Hwanwoong is talking about, the treacherous roads he almost took once, too. He shudders just thinking about the kind of close calls Hwanwoong is talking about. 

“And how did it work out for you? How did you become a choreographer?”

“I went to college. Got my degree,” Hwanwoong shoots him a playful smirk. “Bet you didn’t know that.”

“I didn’t. Maybe I should be looking up your Naver profile.” 

“I don’t have one yet but yes, you definitely should,” Hwanwoong says. “I graduated last year, started working with some friends, called up some favors. It’s been great, honestly.”

“I’m glad,” Keonhee says, and he is. 

They reach the station after another minute of silence. Keonhee gives Hwanwoong what he hopes is a friendly smile. Hwanwoong gives him one of his small smiles back, and it looks like there’s something there—like Hwanwoong wants to say something, too, his gaze too piercing for it to be anything else. 

“Thanks for the ride,” Hwanwoong says, taking off his seatbelt.

“My pleasure. See you on Thursday.”

“See you on Thursday,” Hwanwoong echoes back, nodding as he opens the passenger door. He climbs out of the car and closes the door behind him, but he doesn’t take one step towards the station before he turns back around, leaning down and gesturing for Keonhee to open the window. Keonhee does. “You’re prettier. Than Geonhak’s boyfriend, I mean. I just had really, really shitty eyesight back then.”

He walks away before Keonhee can come up with a witty response to that. All he can do is watch as Hwanwoong vanishes down the stairs to the subway station, trying with all his might not to smile and failing miserably.

* * *

“You were getting it right last time, what changed? Do we need to go over that step again?”

Hwanwoong sounds exasperated. He doesn’t seem to mind that the room is packed this time around, but neither does Keonhee when he shoots back, “Give me a minute, Jesus, you sound like my mom.”

Someone (read: Changmin) mutters “ _gross”_ , but neither of them acknowledge it. Keonhee turns back to the mirror, taking a deep breath. He looks positively disgusting, he thinks—they’ve been going over the choreography long enough now that he’s drenched in sweat, bangs plastered to his forehead. His cheeks are pink with the exertion but by God, he _will_ get this shit right before he bitch slaps Hwanwoong into a parallel universe.

Things seemed to be ok when Keonhee first got to practice that evening. Today is a group practice—meaning, Keonhee and his backup dancers, all together to check if the choreography looks seamless enough so far. Everyone seemed to be in a good mood, including Hwanwoong. Keonhee thought that their conversation the other day had helped, if Hwanwoong was able to smile at him like that.

That is, until practice actually started and he went back to judging Keonhee’s dancing skills like this was some kind of survival show and he had been paid to make Keonhee’s life hell.

Keonhee tries it again, putting all his strength into the overly complicated step Hwanwoong swore wasn’t _that_ hard. Hwanwoong watches him with hawk-like eyes, nodding his head to the counts he’s probably doing in his head. He snaps out of it to say, “No. Your arm comes down at 7, not 8. Like, five, six, seven,” he demonstrates what he means with his own body, “eight. At eight you’re already there.”

Keonhee wants to roll his eyes so bad, but he doesn’t, because while he’d love to piss Hwanwoong off for nitpicking like that, he’s still at work. And while at work, Keonhee likes to be professional. He has a reputation of being someone nice to work with, and Yeo _fucking_ Hwanwoong isn’t gonna be the one to change that. 

He just isn’t.

So instead of rolling his eyes and offering the palm of his hand for Hwanwoong to talk to, he clenches his jaw and does the step again. And again. And again. Until finally, Hwanwoong seems satisfied with it, and they all resume their positions to go over the routine one more time.

What’s funny, Keonhee thinks as he watches Hwanwoong leave after practice with Soojin, is that nothing seems to have changed. They don’t have a reason to be antagonistic anymore. He didn’t magically insult Hwanwoong during practice, and they’re not being actively hostile towards each other for a particular reason. It’s just Hwanwoong, being an annoying little shit, like Keonhee knew he was, like he knew deep down—

“When are the two of you boning again?”

Keonhee spits out the water he has been drinking. Changmin doesn’t even flinch, watching him as Keonhee wipes at his chin and croaks out, “What.”

“When…” Changmin repeats, slower this time, word by word, staring right into Keonhee’s eyes, “are the two of you” he makes an obscene gesture with his hands that Keonhee slaps away, mortified, “boning again?”

“Shut up? We’re not? Shut up. Where is that coming from?”

“The sexual tension?” Changmin says, gesturing to encompass the air around him. “It was kinda hot until you called him mom.”

Keonhee gasps, “I didn’t call him _mom_. And there’s no sexual tension. Shut up.”

“Oh, there isn’t?” Changmin turns around and calls out, “Juyeon!”

Juyeon, his second-in-command in the crew, who has been talking to the last crew member to leave the room, walks over. “Yeah?”

“On a scale from 1 to 10, how likely it is that there’s something going on between Keonhee and the dance instructor?”

Juyeon hesitates, asking Keonhee instead, “I thought you guys were together?”

Changmin gives Keonhee a pointed look, and Keonhee wants to simultaneously scream and never utter a word again. He looks at Juyeon with the most blank expression he can muster, “We’re not. Don’t trust a word Changmin says about this. He’s out for blood.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Changmin says.

“He didn’t,” Juyeon confirms. “I just thought… I mean, you guys seem to know each other. And there’s some tension...”

“ _Sexual_ tension,” Changmin adds. 

“It’s _He’s An Idiot_ tension,” Keonhee explains. “I want to strangle him. You’re mistaking my murderous tendencies for lust. That can happen, I can get very passionate when I’m plotting murder.”

“Those things can co-exist.”

“For you, definitely,” Keonhee says. 

He knows there’s no point in arguing because when Changmin gets like this he doesn’t back down—the last time Changmin tried to hook him up with a friend is still horribly fresh in his memory—and also because Keonhee doesn’t want to argue. If he does, he has to think about the possibility of sexual tension between him and Hwanwoong even existing in the first place, and that is—

Nope. Not going there. Not at all. Not entertaining the thought in the slightest.

He turns around to pack his things, giving his back to the two of them in hopes that will show them how completely unbothered he is.

The silence that follows tells him it doesn’t work.

“Stop giving each other looks behind my back,” he says, and hears Changmin laugh.

“But seriously, you guys are not together? For real?” 

Keonhee turns back around to glare at Juyeon, making Changmin laugh even harder.

* * *

It’s been three weeks since Hwanwoong first came to work with him. Keonhee is surprised when he does the math, because it doesn’t feel like it has been that long. But he has been so busy wrapping up promotions and preparing for the concert, it makes sense that he wouldn’t see time go by like this. 

Time really does fly when you’re sleeping 4 hours every night and your meals are eaten on styrofoam bowls in waiting rooms.

He does a little more math. They had three practice sessions for two weeks, and one sole practice during the week Keonhee thought he was coming down with a cold. Which means they were together in the same room at least seven times. Seven total times.

“Three more to go,” he mutters to himself, standing outside the practice room and trying to psych himself to just open the door. He can hear music inside, not the music they’re been practicing, but something with a lot less bass. 

It’s not like he’s scared to go in. There’s nothing to be scared of, first of all—even if Hwanwoong looks like he bites, he’s not going to. And even if there was something to be scared of, Keonhee is braver than that. He’s faced bigger demons, literally and figuratively. 

No, he’s not scared. He’s just… careful. As he should be, he thinks.

Hwanwoong is alone in the room. That’s to be expected, considering it’s just them today for practice. What Keonhee isn’t expecting is to find Hwanwoong dancing all by himself, in the middle of the room.

He has his eyes closed, so he doesn’t see Keonhee come in. He looks so focused, so entranced by the music, that Keonhee doesn’t say anything at first. It would feel wrong to interrupt; sacrilegious, almost.

Hwanwoong is a good dancer. That’s not news, of course, but Keonhee can’t help but repeat those words to himself in his head, over and over, to avoid thinking too much about the way his body moves. It’s less like he’s dancing to a particular choreography and more like his body is naturally responding to the beat—like Hwanwoong is made of air itself, letting the music bend him this way and that, beautiful like few things are in this world.

When Hwanwoong opens his eyes, he finds Keonhee watching him in the mirror. He doesn’t startle, but he stops dancing—much like someone in a trance, he lets his arms down, like he’s coming back to himself. He doesn’t seem embarrassed, or upset that Keonhee has been standing there, watching. He walks back to the laptop connected to the sound system and pauses the music. 

He’s panting when he gives Keonhee an apologetic little smile, “Sorry, didn’t see you there.”

“I just got here,” Keonhee explains, which isn’t a lie. He’s staring, he realizes. He clears his throat and walks over to the nearest bench, dropping his backpack down and taking off his jacket.

They don’t talk about it. Keonhee thinks maybe that’s a mistake, because when they start going over his routine, he still can’t stop thinking about it. Hwanwoong, dancing. And not just dancing, too, but enjoying himself like Keonhee has never seen anyone do. He looked gorgeous, out of this world, really. And intoxicating enough that Keonhee is distracted.

“Wait, wait, Keonhee, no,” Hwanwoong shrieks, pausing the music. “You missed it again. The timing. You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“You know, I would’ve apologized because that was my bad,” Keonhee says. “But you just have to say it like that—”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m an idiot and you’re the smartest person in the room.”

“Well, maybe I am.”

“Oh, shut _up_ ,” Keonhee says, louder than he means to. “You’re so full of yourself.”

“And you are not?”

“Me?!”

“Yeah, you,” Hwanwoong fixes him with a look, exasperated. “You act like I’m forcing you to do this, but you’re the one who hired me to teach you. So that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m teaching you. But you make it so much harder than it needs to be.”

“I actually don’t, but thank you for acting like I’m the worst dancer you’ve ever seen, that will certainly help make things easier.”

“You may not be the worst but you’re the most—”

“The most what?” Keonhee takes one step closer. Hwanwoong does the same until they’re face to face. “What am I, Hwanwoong?”

“Irritating!” Hwanwoong needs to look up to meet his eyes, and he does, the glint in his gaze telling Keonhee he isn’t gonna win this so easily. “Just straight up irritating. Like just because you’re all tall and pretty and you have a nice voice you get a pass at being annoying and making things hard for—”

“Did you just call me pretty?”

“Shut up, I’m trying to make a point! You make things so much harder than they need to be, it’s like you’re trying to piss me off and get things wrong on purpose…”

“I don’t do that, you’re a bad teacher for not having the patience to—”

Hwanwoong gasps. “You didn’t just call me a bad teacher. Oh, you didn’t. Take that back.”

“Make me.”

Keonhee doesn’t know what exactly he’s expecting to happen, but Hwanwoong doesn’t let him guess for long. He grabs Keonhee’s face and mashes their lips together, kissing him like he’s still trying to win an argument. Keonhee kisses him back, surprised to find he remembers this, remembers what it feels like to kiss Hwanwoong, to hold him close and then closer still. 

The kiss is desperate, verging on angry, and Keonhee makes a pathetic little noise on the back of his throat that makes his face burn in embarrassment. Thankfully, Hwanwoong is too busy kissing him like his life depends on it, all tongue and heavy breathing and roaming hands. Keonhee is trying to think, he really is, but his thoughts are a mix of very loud, very obnoxious alarm sirens going off in his head and little absurd details he probably shouldn’t be cataloguing but is—how much stronger Hwanwoong’s grip is on his waist compared to the last time they kissed, for instance, or how much softer his lips are despite how hard he’s kissing Keonhee.

“Wait.”

He pushes Hwanwoong away, just enough so he can catch a breath and _think_. He needs to think. What is he doing? Should he be doing this? Is this smart? He makes the mistake of looking at Hwanwoong and whatever logic he had going flies immediately out of his head. Hwanwoong is looking at him with half-lidded eyes that betray hunger, clear as day. His lips are pink like his cheeks, and Keonhee—

“Nevermind,” Keonhee says, pulling him in again to kiss him.

Of all the good decisions he’s made in his life, pinning his dance instructor against the practice room mirror probably wouldn’t make it to the top 10, but Keonhee is too blissed out to care. They pull apart long enough to lock the door but as soon as they are connected again Hwanwoong is pulling him closer, fully grinding against him. 

This is so much. Not too much, but _so much_.

Hwanwoong’s hands are on him, everywhere at once, drawing him out and pulling him apart. He bites into the exposed skin of Keonhee’s shoulder and Keonhee gasps in surprise, answering in kind by tugging at his hair. It’s a game, a fierce, all-consuming one that Keonhee doesn’t know if he’d rather win or lose. 

He wants to cry when Hwanwoong gets him over the edge with one hand. He does cry out a little, a whine that echoes a bit too loud in the empty room, but Hwanwoong doesn’t judge him. Instead, he finds Keonhee’s lips and drinks the sounds straight from his mouth, not letting anything out. He comes not long after, squeezing Keonhee’s wrist around him, mouth falling open beautifully, staring Keonhee in the eye. 

Hwanwoong is intensity in human form, fire set ablaze and left to burn, Keonhee learns. Remembers.

As soon as they’ve pulled their pants back up, he walks away to inexplicably produce wipes out of his bag, handing one to Keonhee as he cleans his own hand. 

Keonhee is still by the mirror, panting. Watching him. Trying to work through the fog of pleasure and peacefulness that is his head right now. 

“Well,” Keonhee smiles to himself, at his own words before he even utters them, because he’s still floating somewhere in cloud nine. “That’s one way to deflect when you’re losing an argument.”

Hwanwoong glares at him, but his expression clears when he sees Keonhee’s smile.

“Do you ever shut up?” 

“No. That’s my charm, actually.”

“If you say so,” Hwanwoong laughs when he needs to dodge Keonhee’s weak slap to his arm. He gets close enough to press his body against Keonhee’s again, light pressure that Keonhee finds strangely comforting, considering they’re both sweaty and too hot for comfort. Hwanwoong watches his face for a moment, a smile tugging at his lips before he gives Keonhee a soft kiss on the corner of his mouth. “You’re not a bad dancer.”

The waving of a white flag isn’t necessary now, Keonhee thinks, not anymore, but he still appreciates it. “And you’re not a bad teacher.”

Hwanwoong is about to press another kiss to his lips when Keonhee adds:

“Most of the time.”

Hwanwoong bites Keonhee’s bottom lip in retaliation, and Keonhee laughs, pulling him in for a kiss. This one is a lot less aggressive, a lot more deliberate. Tender, Keonhee thinks, cupping Hwanwoong’s cheek. 

And tender is new for them, uncharted territory that Keonhee isn’t sure how to navigate. They can do casual sex, sure—they’ve done that before everything else, and it worked before it didn’t. But what he’s feeling right now goes a little beyond the thrill of a quick handjob. It’s a little more than what he’s equipped to deal with right now. 

Tenderness. That could be dangerous.

He pulls back, licking his lips before he can stop himself. Like he can still taste Hwanwoong there for the few seconds after they’ve parted. Hwanwoong gives him a look, but he’s not clueless—he can sense the shift in Keonhee’s demeanor, the building awkwardness that comes from not knowing where to go from here. 

“I should, uhm,” Hwanwoong takes a step back, then two, towards his backpack. “I should probably go. Right? I should?”

Keonhee nods immediately, not sure why he’s so intent on not meeting Hwanwoong’s eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”

He walks over to his own backpack, looking for his phone. He can hear Hwanwoong grabbing his things, but he doesn’t look back when Hwanwoong walks past him, towards the door. It’s only when Hwanwoong pauses at the doorway, holding the door open, that Keonhee looks up and says, as brightly as he can manage, “See you Thursday!”

The smile Hwanwoong gives him doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yeah, see you.”

* * *

**little shit [09:43]:**

Should we talk about this?

* * *

“Bullshit,” Changmin says, no sugarcoating whatsoever. “You’re not ditching practice.”

Keonhee looks up at him from the cocoon he made for himself on the couch. He hugs the blankets a little tighter around himself as he says, “I’m sick.”

“You’re not.”

Keonhee does a little fake cough.

“Bullshit,” Changmin repeats. “Is this the Hwanwoong thing? Because if it is, I gotta tell you, that’s dumb.”

When Keonhee doesn’t answer, staring at the TV and ignoring him, he grabs the remote sitting next to Keonhee on the couch and turns it off. Keonhee opens his mouth to complain, but Changmin is faster.

“Get off this couch before I do something drastic.”

“You already did,” Keonhee pouts at the black screen. So much for his _Hello, My Twenties!_ marathon.

“Oh yeah? You think that’s drastic? Watch this.”

Changmin pulls his phone out and taps on the screen a couple times, taking it to his ear. 

“Juyeonie?” He says after a second. “Did Hwanwoong get there yet?”

Keonhee is startled into action. He tries to stand up and snatch the phone from Changmin’s hand, but he ends up flailing his arms to keep his balance when he trips on the blankets around him.

Changmin watches him, not moving an inch to help, as he says into the phone, “Oh yeah? Would you do me a favor? Ask him if he would be so kind as to come over to Keon—”

“Wait, I’ll go!” Keonhee disentangles himself from the blankets as fast as he can, trying to reach Changmin, who dodges out of his reach with a manic grin. Fucking dancer reflexes. “Don’t bring him here, I look awful—I’ll go! You win. I promise, I’ll go.”

Changmin’s grin grows twice its size when he turns the phone around and shows Keonhee his locked screen. Which means—

“You were pretending to be on the phone?” Keonhee squeals in horror.

“I had to,” Changmin explains. He pockets his phone again, sits down on the couch like he’s got all the time in the world now that he has tricked Keonhee into agreeing to go to practice. “Now explain what’s going on.”

“You’re evil.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Your haircut doesn’t compliment the shape of your face at all.”

Changmin blinks in surprise. “Ok. I had that one coming, sure. Now why are you avoiding your booty call slash dance instructor?”

“He’s not my booty call,” Keonhee groans. He sits on his now destroyed blanket cocoon, too exhausted to bother fixing it. “He’s a mistake.”

He pauses, balancing the pros and cons of talking about this. Putting it into words sounds like a good idea, since he can’t figure things out the way they are in his head. He needs to talk. So talk he does. He explains everything, from their first meeting to last Tuesday, and how that was his second fatal mistake.

“The first one was allowing this to happen in the first place,” Keonhee drops his head back, resting it against the couch and closing his eyes in defeat. “Why did I think it was a good idea to work with someone I slept with once? _Why_? Who in their right mind does that?”

“Is that one of your rhetorical questions?” Changmin asks, and Keonhee opens one eye to glare at him. Changmin shrugs. “I mean, plenty of people sleep with their coworkers. I do.”

“It doesn’t cloud your judgement?”

Changmin thinks for a second. “No. I thinks it’s good, actually. If anything, it’s practical.”

“And you don’t get…” Keonhee chooses his words carefully. “...carried away? Harboring feelings you shouldn’t be harboring?”

“Are you trying to ask me if I’ve ever fallen in love with a casual hookup?”

Keonhee nods before it dawns on him, suddenly and horrifyingly. 

“Wait. Oh, no.”

Changmin pats his knee. “I knew you’d get there, my friend.”

“No. Oh my god,” Keonhee bolts upright, anxiety shocking him into moving, unable to sit still for another minute. “Wait, no. This is bad.”

“Why?”

“Why?” He shrieks, pacing back and forth. “I can’t catch feelings for him!”

“Why not?”

“Because—” He stutters, trying to collect his thoughts. “Because! It’s Hwanwoong.” He says this so convincingly, he waits for Changmin to react. When he doesn’t, still looking up at Keonhee and waiting for him to continue, Keonhee groans. “It’s Hwanwoong! He doesn’t like me. He hates me. I hate him.”

“Oh, you do?”

“Yes! He’s—He’s arrogant, and he’s always complaining about everything, and he—He’s—” Keonhee throws his hands up. “I don’t know! He’s annoying. Don’t make that face at me.”

Changmin, holding back his smile with wide eyes full of mirth, raises his hands. “I’m not making any face. It’s just my face.”

“Right. You think I’m full of shit.”

“I do. I think you like him.”

Keonhee wants to retort and prove Changmin wrong, because he is, he must be. But Keonhee knows better, too. He knows that somehow, between meeting Hwanwoong at that party so many years ago and that fateful Tuesday night in the practice room, he managed to grow fond of Hwanwoong. Of his smile, of the way he moves, of his voice, and of that thing he does with his nose, and...

“Oh, I’m so screwed.”

“Dude, stop panicking!” Changmin stands up to hold Keonhee’s face with both hands, making him stop to focus on him. “Look at me. Stop overthinking this. He’s hot, he’s available, and he’s obviously into you too.”

“Is he?”

“Where’s this insecurity coming from?”

“Years of avoiding therapy in high school.”

“No, I mean,” Changmin squeezes his face as he says this, as if deep in thought. “You weren’t this insecure with Donghan.”

“Donghan doesn’t hate me,” Keonhee points out, speaking through a pout as Changmin continues to squeeze his cheeks like he’s a very willing puppy. “And he’s always horny for anything that moves, it’s not that hard to get his attention.”

“Even then. I think you’re making this more complicated than it needs to be,” Changmin says, finally letting him go. It reminds Keonhee of Seoho’s words—advising him not to assume things. Something Keonhee has been doing a lot of, apparently. “And I think he’s into you.”

“How can you possibly know that?”

“I have a feeling,” Changmin grins and sits back down on the couch, pulling his phone out of his pocket. “Go get dressed, it’s almost time for practice. Your boy toy will be waiting.”

Keonhee throws a pillow at him.

* * *

Hwanwoong looks unfairly good.

He has his hair pulled back today, tied in a small ponytail on the back of his head. It’s not the first time he’s worn his hair like this for practice, but right now Keonhee is hyper aware of just how good he looks with it. Absurdly so. Unfairly so.

God is such a prankster. Really. 

Keonhee puts on his best socially acceptable smile as he walks into the room, greeting everyone. He meets Hwanwoong’s eyes last, afraid of what he’ll find in them. He’s scared Hwanwoong is gonna pull the rug from under his feet any minute now, turn on a cold shoulder. Just the fact that he showed up for practice is a victory, Keonhee thinks—he has been dreading hearing from the company that his dance instructor just decided to forgo their last practices for _personal reasons_ , even if they only have two more to go.

“Hey there,” Hwanwoong greets him with a smile that carries a tinge of worry. But he maintains eye contact, so Keonhee does, too. “Ready for today?”

“Always.”

Practice goes over smoothly. Too smoothly, he thinks. Hwanwoong isn’t pointing out as many of his slip-ups as Keonhee thinks he should, considering Keonhee is too on edge to get the timing of his feet right. Maybe it’s because the entire crew is here, and the overall composition looks good enough for Hwanwoong, who must be taking in the big picture of Keonhee with his backup dancers. 

Maybe it’s because Hwanwoong doesn’t want to interact with Keonhee as much now.

But this is still work, and Keonhee has enough presence of mind to focus on what they’re working on. He tries not to think too much about it when he meets Hwanwoong’s eyes and Hwanwoong looks away.

It’s when they take a short bathroom break that Keonhee decides that he can’t just keep quiet. That’s not his forte, never was, and it’s definitely not how he’s gonna handle this. Especially if he thinks there’s a chance they might never speak to each other again after this week is over. 

He missed his chance to speak to Hwanwoong once, he’s not gonna miss it again. Even if it costs him his dignity, because fuck it.

“Dignity is overrated, anyway,” he mutters to himself as he walks out of the room, looking one way then another. 

He spots Hwanwoong down the hall to the left, water bottle in hand, which means he’s off to refill it. That’s certainly better than cornering him on his way out of the bathroom, Keonhee thinks. He jogs after him, calling after him before Hwanwoong can enter the small kitchen space on that floor. 

Hwanwoong gives him a curious look when he turns around. “Hey,” he says, cautiously.

“Can we talk?” Keonhee asks. When Hwanwoong nods, he gestures towards the kitchen space. It’s a small room, but it’s functional enough. Keonhee hopes whatever memory comes out of this isn’t gonna ruin this room for him forever. He really likes those chairs. 

Hwanwoong is standing by the table, still wary like a hare ready to bolt at the first sign of danger.

Keonhee closes the door behind him and stands there, awkwardly, trying to decide how to best approach this. “So. I’ve been thinking a lot about what happened last time—”

“You don’t have to do this.”

Keonhee pauses. “Do what?”

“This. Ditch me,” Hwanwoong swallows dry, clenches his jaw. “It’s fine, really. You don’t have to explain yourself.”

“I’m not _ditching_ you,” Keonhee scoffs. “We’re not even together for me to ditch you in the first place.”

“Oh, so we’re arguing over semantics now?”

“No! We’re not arguing over anything, you’re the one jumping to conclusions here.”

Hwanwoong lets out a disbelieving laugh, “I’m not. I can take a hint, that’s all.”

“Hate to break it to you, Mr Smartass, but you can’t, because what I wanted to say was that I’m into you and I’d love to keep this thing going, but if you’re so desperate to put words in my mouth and come to bizarre conclusions that make no sense all by yourself then maybe you’re better off—” Keonhee’s words die out on the way to his lips once he realizes Hwanwoong is staring at him with wide eyes. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You’re into me?”

Keonhee swallows his embarrassment and his self-preservation instintics. Nods. “Yes.”

“And you’re not joking?”

“Why on earth would I joke about that?”

“I’m just checking,” Hwanwoong says. He still looks dumbfounded, obviously so, and Keonhee marvels at how expressive he is when he’s not making an effort to hide what he’s feeling. “You send a lot of mixed signals.”

“No, I don’t,” Keonhee disagrees on autopilot, but then he stops, makes a face. “Do I?”

“You basically gave me the practice room equivalent of kicking me out of your bed last Tuesday. Like, ‘this was fun and all, but bye, you’re not sleeping over and we’re most definitely not cuddling to sleep’.”

“To be fair, there was no place for us to cuddle in that room,” Keonhee jokes, but it falls flat to his own ears because he knows what Hwanwoong is talking about. He knows that the moment the lust had subsided and it was just them, holding each other close, Keonhee freaked out. He pushed Hwanwoong away, and there was only way to interpret that, really, if he thought about it. “I just—I might have been a little nervous. About… You know.”

Hwanwoong immediately says, “I don’t. Actually.”

“I was thinking that I was too into it,” Keonhee explains, feeling his face burn hot for admitting that out loud. “Ok? I thought I was too into you. I was liking it too much for something that was supposed to be two people blowing off some steam together.”

Hwanwoong takes a moment to answer, watching his face. “That’s all it was to you?”

“I thought that’s all it was to _you_.”

“I gave you so many hints!”

“You really suck at hints, did anyone ever tell you that?”

Hwanwoong opens his mouth to argue, closes it, then opens it again to say, “Whatever. You suck at it, too.”

Keonhee can’t help it. He snorts, “Wow. Great comeback.”

“Are you gonna focus on that? Out of everything I said?”

“What did you say?”

“That I’m into you too, you _idiot_ ,” Hwanwoong shakes his head. “Seriously, how did that fly right over your head?”

Keonhee smiles. Not just because Hwanwoong looks cute all frustrated like this, but because hearing from his own mouth that Hwanwoong is into him is definitely better than the best case scenarios he had come up with in his head. 

It feels good. Really good. 

“Maybe I’m just having fun riling you up.”

Hwanwoong chuckles, “I’m not kissing you to shut you up again, if that’s your goal here.”

“Oh, I have no goal. Well. I was decided to thoroughly embarrass myself by confessing and getting rejected, but I didn’t plan after that.”

“And if I had rejected you?”

“I’d move on. Like I did last time.”

Hwanwoong’s smile drops. “I’m still so sorry about that.”

“No, it’s—” Keonhee shakes his head, trying to convey what he’s trying to say with his eyes, too. “We gotta get past that. I mean, the bad parts. We had a good time, that’s all I want to remember from back then. You apologized. I accepted your apology. It’s water under the bridge.”

“You sure? Because I still feel like a jackass, a little bit.”

Keonhee nods. “You were a jackass. And I was hurt, but we can’t go back in time to fix any of it. We just have to move forward. Deal with who we are today, let who we were in the past.”

“That’s… very mature of you.”

“Don’t sound so surprised.”

“I’m not—” Hwanwoong sighs when he sees the mischievous look on Keonhee’s face. “Now you’re just begging me to shut you up again.”

“Oh, I don’t beg.” Keonhee says as Hwanwoong steps closer, sneaking his arms around Keonhee’s neck like he’s done this plenty of times before—or like he has been wanting to do for a long time. “Like, ever.”

“Really?” Hwanwoong is smiling when he pulls Keonhee down by the neck for a brief, soft kiss. It’s reminiscent of their kiss in the practice room, tenderness wrapping itself around Keonhee’s heart in an embrace as warm as theirs right now. “We’ll see about that.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Consider it a warning.”

“So, a threat.”

“Oh, shut up and kiss me already, asshole.”

* * *

There’s few things in life that Keonhee considers as exhilarating as standing on stage. 

So to stand on a stage all by himself while over two thousand people chant your name is definitely an experience he’s not gonna forget that easily. 

The concert comes to an end quicker than he wants it to. It was everything he hoped it would be and more. He’s ecstatic, bouncing on his feet when he runs backstage and hugs his friends and his staff, happy out of his mind that he _did_ it. He held an entire solo concert by himself, which he considers such a huge milestone in his career, one he wasn’t expecting to reach so soon—if at all. 

There are hugs to give and flowers to accept and pictures to take. Lots of each one of those, but Keonhee doesn’t mind. He’s genuinely happy, and if he’s tired, he doesn’t feel it. Not right now, with adrenaline coursing through his veins and his voice still a notch higher than it needs to be. 

He spots Hwanwoong before Hwanwoong announces himself, walking over with a small bouquet in hand and huge smile on his face. 

“That wasn’t all bad,” Hwanwoong says once Keonhee has excused himself from the group conversation he’s having. Hwanwoong hands him the bouquet. “The stage. You did a good job.”

“Just good?” Keonhee can’t stop the smile on his face, try as he might. 

“Good enough. Decent. Mildly entertaining.”

Hwanwoong’s smile is too big for Keonhee to misinterpret this. He’s proud, and happy, and Keonhee wishes he could kiss him and get all that from Hwanwoong’s lips on his. If there’s one thing Keonhee learned about him in the past couple of months, is that Hwanwoong can’t lie when he’s being kissed.

But there’ll be time for that.

“I had a good teacher,” Keonhee says, offhandedly like it’s a passing thought that just occurred to him.

“Mm. Is that so? Dance instructors can be difficult to work with, sometimes.” 

“Oh, yeah, he was. A total pain in the ass,” Keonhee jokes, happy to see Hwanwoong laugh and slap his arm in retaliation. “But I’ll let you in on a little secret,” Keonhee leans down so no one can possibly overhear him when he says to Hwanwoong’s ear only, “he was kinda hot, so it was worth it.”

Hwanwoong slaps his arm again, laughing even harder. “You’re ridiculous.” 

With how giddy Keonhee feels, he doesn’t even think about arguing against that. He really does feel a little ridiculous with how happy he is right now. Unable to contain himself, he asks, “See you tomorrow?”

Hwanwoong gives his wrist the most gentle of squeezes. It’s a touch that grounds Keonhee at the same time that it makes him a little lightheaded because it’s a reminder that Hwanwoong is here, in the present, with him.

His, and not going anywhere. 

“See you tomorrow,” Hwanwoong says, winking at him before walking away.

* * *

“Keonhee!” Seoho’s voice is loud enough that Keonhee hears it above the music and the chattering around them. He turns around to find his labelmate bringing someone along with him. “Lemme introduce you to a friend of mine. This is Geonhak. Geonhak, you remember Hwanwoongie?”

Geonhak is a tall, buff guy with too many piercings to count on his left ear. Keonhee takes his hand, says, “Nice to meet you.” 

“And this is Dongju,” Seoho gestures to the guy next to Geonhak, a more slender guy with pretty lips and hair dyed a cotton candy shade of pink. 

They exchange handshakes and friendly nods as Geonhak and Hwanwoong dive into a brief _how’s it been_ convo. Keonhee notices Seoho looking at him, head going back and forth between him and Dongju. 

“What?” Keonhee asks. 

“You two really kinda look alike,” Seoho says, distracted.

“We don’t,” they say at the same time, looking at each other in surprise.

Seoho laughs, that mischievous laugh that usually means nothing but trouble. “I knew introducing you would be the best thing about this party. Bless Youngjo hyung but he can’t throw a good party to save his life.”

“What are we talking about?” Hwanwoong asks, him and Geonhak tuning into the conversation again. He clings to Keonhee’s side, looks up at him.

“I said they kinda look alike. Keonhee and Dongju,” Seoho says, and before either of them can scream at him for it, he says, “Anyway! I’m gonna go get some more drinks.”

He vanishes into the crowd, leaving the four of them to stare at each other in awkward silence. 

“He does that,” Keonhee says. 

“I know. He’s an ass,” Geonhak says, then blinks as if he can’t believe he said that out loud. He tries to retract it. “I’m—We know each other, I’m his friend. We’re friends. I’m not saying this out of nowhere.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Hwanwoong reassures him. “Keonhee will be the first to agree with you.”

“Now _I_ sound like an ass,” Keonhee says.

That makes Dongju snort. Loudly.

“Sorry,” he says, not looking sorry at all.

“And what was that about the two of you looking alike?” Geonhak asks him.

Keonhee and Hwanwoong exchange a look.

“I brought it up,” Hwanwoong says, which is only half a lie. “It’s my fault. Seoho hyung just couldn’t let it go. I guess he’s been curious to see them next to each other since then.”

“Ah, that sounds like him,” Geonhak says, looking convinced. Dongju doesn’t, but he also doesn’t say anything. 

It’s only later, when they’ve had a couple more drinks, that Keonhee pulls Hwanwoong aside.

“So you thought I was dating him?” He indicates Geonhak with a nod of his head, sitting on the couch a few steps away. “You must’ve thought I had a lot of game to do that. His Instagram pics don’t do him justice at all.”

Hwanwoong smirks. “You were hot, he was hot. It wasn’t that hard to imagine it happening.”

“Oh? You thought I was hot?”

“How is that news to you? I went home with you on the same night I met you. We literally slept together.”

“You could’ve been desperate.”

Hwanwoong is still smirking, still smiling like he knows something Keonhee doesn’t. “For someone so full of himself you sure are clueless about the effect you have on people.”

“On people or on you?”

Hwanwoong rolls his eyes and starts to pull him towards the couch where Geonhak and Dongju are sitting. “I’m people.”

Keonhee has a comeback ready this time, but he’s too fond, too smitten to say anything. 

He sits next to Hwanwoong, and uses the opportunity to rest his head on his shoulder. It’s comfortable like this, hearing Hwanwoong’s voice so close to his ear while he engages in conversation with Geonhak, something or another about a release by an artist Keonhee doesn’t really care about. 

“Hey,” he says, looking up when there’s a lull in the conversation.

Hwanwoong looks down at him. He brushes Keonhee’s bangs out of his eyes, lovingly. “Hey you.”

“I’m glad you’re here,” Keonhee says.

It’s just words, but not really. Because Keonhee doesn’t do just words. He means everything he says, and he knows Hwanwoong is aware of that fact, too. He knows, with the way Hwanwoong’s eyes grow soft and his smile grows bigger, that Hwanwoong hears it. The meaning behind those words. How happy Keonhee is to have him here, with him, at another party, this time with the absolute certainty they’re not gonna lose each other again after this night.

“I’m glad you’re here, too.” Hwanwoong finds his hand on his lap, intertwines their fingers together. Keonhee loves the way the corners of his eyes crinkle when he smiles like that. “I love you.”

And even though it’s not his first time hearing that, Keonhee feels his stomach all funny—the metaphorical butterflies go haywire and there’s nothing he can do to stop them. There never is. They’ve been doing this, this thing, whatever it is, for a while now, his concert a few months behind them by now, and he still can’t help it. He knows he’s smiling like an idiot. 

“You’re smiling like an idiot,” Hwanwoong points out, as if reading his mind.

“Shut up. And I love you, too.”

It’s just in time before Seoho emerges from the crowd again with a bottle and several shot glasses stacked up precariously, beaming like a man with a bad idea.

“So. Who’s up for a game?”


End file.
